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Posted in Blog

Walkthrough of Our Family Command Center

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

Once I had preschool-aged kids, I became interested in having a family command center. For details on how I designed the command center, check out this post. 

In this post, I’ll walkthrough our family command center and how we use it. It is a staple in our home that’s used daily.

Our current rendition of the command center

I knew I wanted our command center in the kitchen near the door we use to enter and exit the home, but space was limited. My only option was a narrow but tall space on the side of our kitchen cabinets.

The focal point of the wall is the monthly calendar where each family member’s activities are tracked. Every family member, including our pup, gets a personalized color on the calendar. I like filling it out once a month because it is a mechanism for me to plan ahead. I can see what evenings will be jam packed, so I’ll prep an easy dinner. Or, I’ll see that we have a weekend free to invite friends over or tackle a home project. 

The upper portion of our command center

Below the calendar is a place for files and folders. I currently keep four folders here, but I have flexibility to change it up. Our receipts are dumped into one folder. I clean them out about once a month, after the credit card bill is paid. Another folder is our collection of coupons and gift cards. I’ve been known to grab the whole folder and bring it with us before we head out shopping or out to eat. I always have good stashes of coupons in there. The third folder is for documents that need to be filed. These documents are typically our opened mail that needs to be filed away in our home office. The final folder is a collection of ideas for gifts to purchase for family and friends. For instance, if I read an article in a magazine recommending the best books for preteens, I may rip the page out and plop it in my Ideas for Gifts folder.

Our command center also includes an 8.5″ by 11″ picture frame. I’m currently using it to show our family’s winter fun list — a bunch of activities we want to do as a family during the holiday and cold season. We check them off as we do them. With a glass frame, we can just wipe off the whiteboard marker whenever we want.

What I love about the frame, though, is that it gives me versatility because I can display whatever I want in it. A few years ago, after we’d just put the command center up, I put our meal plan up there. Nowadays, I don’t need to post our meal plan. Instead, we use the Cozi app to meal plan (and plan other things). My love for the free Cozi app is worthy of an entirely new post.

Below the folders and winter fun list are our three “bins.” My husband and I each get a small bin to store our wallets, sunglasses, keys, etc. that we want before we run out the door. The middle bin is miscellaneous stuff, like outgoing mail and the kids’ sunglasses.

The bottom half of the command center

Below our bins are two clipboards, one for each kid. School and daycare papers (like contracts, curriculum information, etc.) are readily available. On top, I display something applicable to the kids. When they were little, it was sticker charts for going to the bathroom or trying new foods. Now that they’re in school, they have checklists detailing what they need to do to get ready for school and what to do when they get home. 

So that’s the meat of our command center and what we use to function daily. However, I had some more space at the top and bottom of the wall to add some extras. Down below is a blank whiteboard that the kids draw on or play with magnets. Right now, their personal goals for 2020 are there. My first grader is making goals in school, and the preschooler didn’t want to be left out.

Up above is our decorative S for our family name and framed list of our family mantras. Here again, for the family mantras, I just created a PowerPoint slide that I printed and placed in a 8.5″ by 11″ frame. It was a fun exercise to think about what we want to focus on teaching our boys.

Spinapolice family mantras

Well, that’s it. We make a lot happen in a small space, and I love it. It looks nice, it’s functional, and it was relatively easy….and that’s exactly how I roll.

Posted in Blog

How to Design Your Family Command Center

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

This post isn’t about my command center. I walkthrough a reveal of ours in another post.

In this post, I’ll rundown the steps for crafting your own command center.

1. Make a list of what you want to organize and have on hand.

I found myself on Pinterest looking at others’ designs for inspiration. A Pinterest board isn’t enough though. Document what you want. You can pare it down to essentials later, based on space or other constraints. Right now, you’re brainstorming. Here are some uses to consider:

  • Inbox for mail 
  • Outbox for mail/paperwork
  • School paperwork
  • Calendars (yearly, monthly, weekly, or daily)
  • Grocery list
  • Meal plan
  • Kids’ backpacks and jackets
  • Keys
  • Wallets/sunglasses/etc.
  • Coupons
  • To do lists
  • Reward charts
  • Chore trackers
  • Important items (e.g., invitations, save the dates)
  • Clock
  • Supplies (e.g., markers, scissors)
  • Charging station
  • Decor

2. Assess your space for a viable location for your command center.

You’ll want to put your command center in a high-traffic location so you see it and use it. You’re not likely going to use your inbox for mail if you have to walk by your kitchen table or a counter to get to the command center. Like pasta sauce on a toddler’s clothes, your mail will be drawn to these flat surfaces instead of where it’s supposed to go. You don’t need a large blank wall for a command center though. Narrow or tall spaces can work too. 

3. You may find that you need to prioritize what to include in your command center.

I pretty much wanted everything in my brainstormed list in Step 1 for my command center, but I couldn’t make it all work. I wanted to include a charging station at my command center, but I didn’t have the depth available for a shelf or table. C’est la vie! My charging station moved closer to the family room instead (where we need it more anyhow). One space doesn’t have to do EVERYTHING.

I prioritized three uses. It was important to me that my command center include a monthly calendar, reward charts for the kids, and a spot for keys. I wanted more, but I wouldn’t compromise on these items.

Consider what’s most important to you and start there. Make sure you can meet those needs first.

4. Identify products to meet your needs.

My Virtual Plan

There’s a lot to this step, so here are some considerations. This step took a lot more time than I thought it would, which was probably exasperated by my small space.

Using your prioritized uses from Step 3, estimate how much space you want products to take up. I knew I wanted a large calendar to track everyone’s activities (using a designated color for each family member, of course), so I was willing to dedicate a lot of space to the calendar.

• Measure, measure, measure! This is particularly important if your space is limited. I knew I was working with a narrow (but tall) space, so I had little room for error in my measurements. I went so far as to cut out paper templates of the products I was eyeing and taped them to the wall to make sure they’d all fit. I highly recommend doing the same.

• Feel free to be creative when identifying products. There are tons of fancy command center products at Target, Walmart, Hobby Lobby, Amazon, and alike, but you aren’t limited to these choices. I used clipboards to store the kids’ paperwork (e.g., daycare contracts, school policies, etc.) and put a reward chart or chore list on top for the kids to reference. I’ve used poster frames to create “whiteboards” and framed printables like checklists or blank meal plan templates.

• Pick a theme, color, or some other unifying characteristic. Okay, well, a theme is certainly optional. But, I knew I was putting my command center in my kitchen, so I didn’t want it to be an eyesore. I’ve seen command centers that are farmhouse themed, color coordinated, color coded by kid, you name it. Pick something that works for you. I searched online stores for products that would organize my three priority needs: a calendar, reward charts, and storage for keys. Once I found three products that provided the functionality I needed, were the right size, and looked like they went together, I declared black with sharp lines my theme.

5. Once you have the products you need, hang them up.

Here again, the paper templates were very helpful in making sure everything was hung in the right place. I also recommend considering using Command Strips to hang your products, particularly if you live in a rental. My command center is on the side of my kitchen cabinets, which I didn’t want to put holes in them. Instead, I overdid it using tons of high-strength command strips. It’s worked out well!

6. Enjoy the fruit of your labor!

Our current command center
Our current command center

We use our command center every day, asking the kids to check their list of what they need to do before school, grabbing our wallets as we head out the door, and reviewing the our family mantras (Spinapolices solve problems with words is a big one at the moment!).

What do you think of this list? Share your thoughts below.

Posted in Blog

Christmas Season Traditions Printable

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

Now more than ever I’m clinging to the family traditions we can maintain to find comfort in the familiar and to remember fond family memories from years passed. I think this is in part due to the crazy 2020 year and just a natural feeling as you get older.

I remember the feelings of magic and warmth that can only come from family during the Christmas season. I recall visits with grandparents, trips to the Opryland Hotel to view their magnificent Christmas displays, road trips to visit extended family that made Christmas feel like it lasted a week, giving gifts to family, receiving that one gift you really wanted, good food, the works.

I want my kids to feel the same way about family and the holidays when they are my age, and I think that comes – in part – from traditions. And, since I’m a list maker, I have a printable to help me!

I like making lists of activities for us to do as a family each season, like I showed here with our Fall Bucket List Printable. I print them out to display on our family command center. I just add the printable to an 8.5×11″ frame with command strips on the back and stick it to the wall, easy peasy. Mr. 7 year old loves reading the list and adding checkmarks next to the activities we’ve completed already.

This weekend I printed off our list of Christmas season traditions, tweaked a bit to be COVID friendly. So although we won’t be seeing Santa in person this year, we can still write him a letter.

If you’d like to do something similar, here’s an editable PowerPoint you can adapt for your family. Download

Alternatively, you can can the image below and print our list.

Our 2020 Christmas Season Traditions List

Have a wonderful holiday season!

Photo by Andy Holmes on Unsplash

Posted in Blog

Reflections On How Time Is Perceived

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

I’m currently reading Laura Vandercam’s book Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done. Of course, with that title, I couldn’t pass it up. Plus, I’ve been following Laura on her Best of Both Worlds podcast for some time. I like what she has to say.

My October book recommendations post will surely rate this book highly. But, even now, when I’m only halfway through it, it’s made me reevaluate about how I’m using my time. It’s a concept I circle back to regularly in my life, and I guess we all should revisit the idea from time to time. Am I spending time on pursuits that I value, bring joy, and make this one life we are living better for me and others?

I remember going through this reflective exercise after my older son was born. I have always been a list-maker who only feels accomplished as plans are executed. Babies and toddlers don’t follow plans. Ha! Nope, not at all. I had to shift my mindset. My goals were no longer to spend the weekends getting dishes done, laundry washed and folded, etc. as fast as possible so I could relax. My focus was on spending time with my little guy. Now the chores still needed to happen, so when my son was old enough, he helped. Sure, it made the whole endeavor take three times longer, but my perception of how I was supposed to be spending my time changed, so it didn’t matter.

I went through this exercise again right before I started this blog. It had been a daydream of mine for years to start a blog, but I never began. Oh sure, there were tons of reasons. I didn’t know how to start. No one cares what I have to say. I didn’t have the time. These were “reasons” and fears that I could overcome. After going through a time tracking exercise, I realized I did have the time to blog. I Googled a bit to figure out how to do it, picked a path, made a loose plan on what to write about, and started writing. I hope others read it, but I’ll write nonetheless.

I’m starting to get that itch again that I want to experience more in life. There are things I want to do with the kids before they are too big. There are places I want to explore around where we live that we never go to because we live here and “we can go any time.” Well, “any time” needs to happen. And as much as I want someone else to plan all of these adventures for me so I just have to show up, that’s not going to occur. I need to make the plans for any activity our family deems safe at the moment and just do it.

To begin, of course, I made a list. Then, we talked about it as a family. (What?! You don’t spend family meals planning out a bucket list of experiences!? Ha!)

I aim for the stars. “Let’s go to the Grand Canyon!”

The kids don’t know what they don’t know and ask for the familiar. It’s evidence that we’ve made some fun memories in the past that they want to repeat. “Let’s go back to the trampoline park!”

My husband likes to relive favorites with the boys. “Let’s watch the Marvel movies together.”

I think the best way to start making these happen is to consider adding them to our seasonal bucket lists posted on our command center. Every time I make the next season’s list, I’ll try to add at least one or two items from our family bucket list so they actually get the attention they deserve and start to happen.

This is my kind of thought exercise! I’m not trying to get more productive so I’m getting 6 hours of work completed in 4 hours instead. I’m thinking about how I want to spend time with my family and get more joy out of life. This is my true priority.

Posted in Blog

Fall Bucket List Printable

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

It’s officially Fall! That means it’s time to pull out my Fall bucket list and add it to our family command center.

Our Fall Bucket List

I had to make a few tweaks to it this year, with COVID limiting some of our activities. I don’t see us going to any of the local Fall festivals this year (if they’re even open). But even without some of our Fall traditions, there’s still plenty to do. We did sneak in apple picking last weekend, so we’ve already started “falling into fun.”

If you’d like to make your own Fall bucket list, feel free to download and use my fill-in-the-blank template below.

Check out the Fall Bucket List Printable.Download

Why do I bother making these lists? It’s simple really.

We typically only get 52 weekends a year. Divide that by four, and that means about 13 weekends of each season per year. Our boys are still young, 5 and 7 years old, but they are growing up quickly. I want to take advantage of our time together and fill our weekends with as much fun as possible. Having a list means that when I’m looking for something for us to do as a family, I have a pre-planned idea of the things we enjoy doing annually. They become our family traditions and the memories the kids will take with them after they leave home. It’s the type of intentional planning that fully embodies my reflect, plan, live attitude.

Posted in Blog

Our Garage “Mudroom” Redo

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

The one thing I wish our home had but doesn’t is a mudroom. You enter the house from the garage right into the kitchen, and book bags and jackets are thrown on the floor in a heap. We had added some organization by building our command center in the kitchen and utilizing the front entry closet, but our shoes would still be left as a mess in the garage.

Here’s our “before” picture. The original owners moved their old kitchen cabinets to the garage, which was nice for the storage but made it difficult to exit the car without dinging the door. We eventually started shoving shoes into the drawers, but they didn’t always fit well.

With extra weekends at home, we finally had some time to create a drop zone / mudroom space in our garage. I knew I wanted a bench to sit on while putting on shoes, space for storage (for men-sized shoes because someday I’ll have three men in this house!!), and more hooks than I think we’ll need for jackets, book bags, and whatever else.

I spent a lot of time online looking for options and found items like this on Amazon. We had only 34 inches of space for the bench, so our choices were limited and often didn’t report being able to support an adult’s weight on the bench. We entertained the idea of building something custom, but then I remembered to check out IKEA. We ended up getting almost everything from there!

Here’s our new and improved “mudroom.”

  • Check out the dog’s hook!
  • My husband’s shoes are here. My three boys went a bit crazy with the label maker. Ha!
  • The kids’ shoes, extras of mine, and outdoor supplies (like sunscreen and hats) are stored in the black containers. This winter we’ll store gloves and hats too. The hooks are at the perfect height for the kids to hang up their own stuff. I have (hopefully temporary) hooks up for masks.

The whiteboard/cork board combination was gifted to us. Here’s everything else we found at IKEA. I LOVE the dog’s hook and the idea to use the $1.29 trash can as an umbrella holder.

The total (before tax) was $139.23.

Overall, I’m thrilled with what we came up with (and the price tag). I look forward to seeing if my family can adopt its use and if the mudroom can handle all of our winter gear.

Posted in Blog

Our Morning Checklist

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

This momma loves a good list. To help our mornings run a bit more smoothly and reduce the number of times I have to tell the kids to brush their teeth or put on their shoes, we created a morning checklist that I added to our family command center.

Our family command center in all its glory.

After a few weeks into the school year, the kids pick up the routine and know to look at it for reminders on what to do.

Our deal is that if the kids can get through their list before we have to leave, they can have some time to play or watch TV. That’s a big motivator to get them moving! Many days they have no time left or just a few minutes. It’s a rare occasion to have enough time to get through a whole cartoon.

What I love about the list is that the kids helped create it, so they had to think about what all needs to happen to get ready for school. I used Microsoft Word to create the list within a table. I added clipart to help Mr. 4-year-old “read” the list and color matched the art and text.

Now that we have the list, the kids have a bit more freedom to manage their time. Certainly, with the kids only being 4 and 6 years old, my husband and I are not hands off. But, we’re are not reminding them WHAT they need to do. Instead we’re asking them what is next on the list or reminding them that they only have 20 minutes left. We’re trying to teach them to be aware of their own time and responsibilities and build some independence. We try to say things like, “You’re normally done brushing your teeth by now, but today you haven’t even started.” And then avoid things like, “Hurry up! We’re late!” (Though I do say that too when I get exasperated!)

Overall, the morning checklist has worked out really well for us. We haven’t missed the bus or been late to school yet, so I’ll take that as a win!

Posted in Blog

How Our Family Uses Cozi

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

This post is not sponsored. I’m not getting any compensation from Cozi for my thoughts in this post.

Cozi is an app that has saved my marriage. Okay, it’s not that revolutionary, but it’s close.

Cozi is a tool we use daily in our home that’s available on mobile devices and computers. It’s pitched as a family organizer, and it’s true to its word. It’s free version includes a shared and color-coded calendar, lists, family journal, and meal planner with a recipe box. With a paid annual Cozi Gold subscription, you can remove ads and get even more features like a birthday tracker, monthly calendar view on mobile devices, and reminder notifications for upcoming events. My husband and I splurged on the Cozi Gold subscription, though we could have made due with the free version. I think we paid $30 for the year.

Let me walk you through the major features of Cozi and how we use it.

Shared Calendar

I was getting frustrated by our old system of saving personal appointments on our work calendars. This system was making me the default keeper of the family calendar because no one else had everything tracked in one place. I didn’t think my husband needed to have info like the dog’s dental cleaning or an appointment for my next pap smear visible to his coworkers on his work calendar.

This app saved me! I’m not the calendar keeper anymore; Cozi is! We have one family calendar now where everyone’s activities are tracked and color coded. (The colors match everyone’s assigned colors are our command center calendar too.)

Like in Outlook, you can set up reoccurring events, invite others, plus add locations and notes. You can even add schedules, like after-school activities or sports programs. But, unlike Outlook, you can add events using plain language. Just type in that Stephanie has dinner with friends 6pm on Wednesday, and Cozi puts the event in the calendar for you.

My favorite feature is that you can opt to send family members daily or weekly agendas. Now that my husband and I both get daily agendas, we both know what the day ahead entails. I’ve added calendar reminders for when library books are due or when school is having a pajama day. It’s all there and sent right to our inboxes each morning.

One caveat though. I personally still need appointments that happen during the work day on my work calendar so my teams know if I’m available or not. You have some options in this situation.

  1. You can enter the appointment in Cozi and your work calendar. (Not my first choice since it doubles my work.)
  2. You can have your work calendar appear in Cozi. (Though then my husband is seeing lots of irrelevant information about my meetings for the day. I didn’t opt for this.)
  3. You can send appointments created in your work calendar to Cozi. (This is the option I chose.) The only way I found to do this was to create a shared Google calendar that is linked to our Cozi calendar. So, when I make an Outlook meeting invite for a personal appointment that occurs during the work day, I add the family calendar as an invitee. The meeting is then automatically accepted by our Google calendar and it appears in Cozi. I wish I could just invite the Cozi calendar, but that isn’t currently an option in the app.

Lists

I have loved using Cozi’s lists feature. There are shopping lists and to-do lists. We mainly use the shopping lists, which integrate with our Alexa. I just ask Alexa to add bananas to the grocery list or eggs to the Costco list, and it appears! (Though, my kids have figured this out too. Last weekend, Mr. 4-year-old asked for apples while my husband was at the grocery store. My husband saw they were added and picked them up. At least my 4-year-old made a healthy choice!)

Cozi also has several pre-made lists you can easily add to your account. For instance, Cozi offered a Thanksgiving meal preparation list, which we used as a guide.

We’ve also made our own lists that we can reuse, like a list of everything we want to pack for a family camping trip. As we pack, we check items off the list, and both of our phones update with the progress we’ve made.

Meals

There are a few things you can do with meals. You can add recipes to your recipe box, either your own recipes, recipes Cozi sponsors, or ones you find online. It’s a great way to keep your recipes organized. Though, I found I haven’t fully leveraged this feature yet.

More often, I’m using the meals section of Cozi to meal plan. When you visit Cozi’s meal planner, you can type in what you’re planning to eat or pick a recipe from your recipe box for each day’s breakfast, lunch, dinner, and/or snack. We don’t plan meals with that level of specificity. But, when I can get my act together enough on the weekends, I like to plan out dinner meals at least. My favorite part of the meal planner is that whatever you select for dinner shows up in your calendar and daily agenda. Everything integrates.

Family Journal

The last Cozi feature we really use regularly is the family journal. It’s sort of like a family-only social media feed where you can write text or share images that are listed chronologically. Everyone in the family can add to it, so if my husband takes the kids to the trampoline park, he can add a cute photo. Or, when my son makes a funny joke, I can document it.

What makes the family journal fun is that you can have its content either posted to a public webpage or emailed in a monthly newsletter. We opted for the monthly newsletter because we could specify who would receive the emails and keep the information more private.

I took the family journal a step further though. We have the monthly newsletters going out to more than just grandparents. I set up email accounts for our sons and have the monthly newsletters going to their inboxes as well, so they will have a copy of these family memories to enjoy when they get older.

That’s the rundown on how we use Cozi. We’ve been using it for about six months now, and I don’t see us dropping it any time soon. I’m thrilled we’ve found a tool that works so well to meet our needs while keeping it simple.

Posted in Blog

The Truth Behind My Love of Alexa: I’m All About That…Backend System

Posted on by Stephanie Spinapolice

You may have seen in one of my last posts that I made reference to all of the actions we can have Alexa do in our new den. Our Amazon Echo and its Alexa has even been one of my Friday Favs.

When I make these types of posts, my husband likes to remind me that I’m oversimplifying how it works. Sure, to me, I just tell Alexa what to do and she does it. If I ask that she locks the doors, you hear the lock turn. When I ask for the den lights to turn on, all of the lamps in the room illuminate. I can even ask Alexa to vacuum. She’s the best listener in the house!

There’s actually a bit more to it. I figured the best way to explain it was to go right to the source and interview my husband. Here’s our exchange.

You say that I oversimplify how Alexa works. Why is that?

The Echo is just one component of a larger ecosystem I have configured in our house. It’s all centered around running an open-source home automation interface called Home Assistant, which runs on a Raspberry Pi.

Through that software, I have configured our smart-enabled devices. We have smart-enabled locks, some lights, and multiple light switches and outlets. I also integrated devices like our Amazon Echo, home alarm system and sensors, our HVAC (via Google Nest), and the garage door. I even tied in my 3D printer, but that’s just a glorified toy. With a more recent Home Assistant update, even your car is connected.

By having all of these devices connected through Home Assistant, you can tell Alexa to do a bunch of things in our house.

Sounds complicated. How did you figure this all out?

I mostly figured it out from friends and coworkers who run similar setups. I also researched different smart-home software that’s out there. I went with Home Assistant because I wanted a solution that (for the most part) was completely self contained and not reliant on “The Cloud.”

While Home Assistant also has documentation on how to integrate the services so you can use the Echo to issue commands, with our setup, we can still control the house via the Home Assistant Apps on our smartphones or via its web interface if our Internet connection ever goes out.

If I didn’t have you, could I figure out how to set up and use a software like Home Assistant?

Yeah! It requires a lot of reading, trial and error, and willingness to write some computer code. I had to write some code to connect Home Assistant to Amazon’s Alexa and to connect to Google’s Nest API. I also had to modify several configuration files within Home Assistant itself to tailor it to suit our needs.

You also set up automations. What are automations, and how did you set them up?

Automations are additional smart-home functions built on top of your infrastructure. They are basically a bit of code that says if this happens, then do that. In our case, I use the Home Assistant interface to identify the smart-enabled devices I want to control like lights and locks. I can use any of the items connected to Home Assistant for an automation, including the various sensors attached to the alarm sensors or our phones’ GPS.

Combining all of that, I have to think of the logic of what I want created. An example is our bedtime routine. Since our bed is a smart-enabled device, I wrote an automation that says if we are home (based on our phones’ GPS locations), in bed, and it’s after a certain time in the evening, then turn off all of the lights, set our HVAC to our desired nighttime temperature, and lock the doors. A simpler automation is turning a hallway light on at sunset and off at a desired time. Another automation we us to help conserve energy is to use motion sensors that turn off lights if there’s no movement after 15 minutes.

Is our family being tracked by others because we’re using Home Assistant?

Yes and no. Home Assistant is locked down. The connection to it is encrypted, and I only have your account and my account allowed to access it. Any attempts by others to access it are logged. If there are abnormal attempts to access the account, I’m notified.

But your phone is tracking you. Therefore, it can be assumed your cell phone manufacturer and the carrier is tracking you. Most apps that you use are tracking you.

How have you mitigated the risk to our network?

To isolate and secure our home network, I’ve set up subnetworks. We have a home network, guest network, and smart-home device network. I have limited what our devices have access to on the smart-home device network. That’s done via our router’s firewall rules and port forwarding policies.

This way, if a smart-enabled device like the TV or Echo was to be compromised by a botnet or some external nefarious actor, it mitigates the risk of compromising our trusted devices like our phones and laptops that stay on our home network.

In short, smart-enabled devices like smart bulbs are cool and useful, but they also shouldn’t be inherently trusted. Most manufacturers don’t focus on securing smart-enabled devices. They just want them to work quickly and easily for consumers.

Ugh, it’s so complicated.

You can make a home automation system simple or secure. I aim to make the system as simple as possible, while maintaining a certain desired level of security. You have to do a risk analysis and determine how simple you want it to be and how much risk you are willing to take.

How would you recommend someone get started if they wanted to use smart-enabled devices or automate their home?

The simplest solution, which doesn’t require Home Assistant, is to buy a smart bulb from your local hardware store. They go for as low as $10. Try using that with whatever app they tell you to install on your phone. From a security perspective, though, I’m not a fan of IOT [Internet of Things] devices.

What advice would you give to someone interested in learning more?

This hobby can be a money pit. First, sit down and determine what items you want to be able to control in more ways and then what do you want to automate. Once you know what you want to do, then you can look into what technologies to buy to perform those actions.

You may want to Google home automation solutions. While you’re reading, determine what skill level you are comfortable dealing with. Check out the software or interfaces available. There are several out there, and even some that aren’t free. Home Assistant is free, but there are others out there that may be more to your liking like Smart Things and Home Seer. Find what works for you.

Photo by BENCE BOROS on Unsplash